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DOI: https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.61.01.23
How to Cite:
Mizin, K., Slavova, L., Petrov, O., & Yumrukuz, A. (2023). Organizing the germans’ emotional world through the prism of the
opposition ORDNUNG vs. CHAOS: Ambivalent emotion concepts. Amazonia Investiga, 12(61), 224-235.
https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2023.61.01.23
Organizing the germans’ emotional world through the prism of the
opposition ORDNUNG vs. CHAOS: Ambivalent emotion concepts
Організація емоційного світу німців на основі протиставлення ORDNUNG vs.
CHAOS: амбівалентні емоційні поняття
Received: February 2, 2023 Accepted: March 30, 2023
Written by:
Kostiantyn Mizin95
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5216-6032
Liudmyla Slavova96
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8035-1801
Oleksandr Petrov97
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4641-3559
Anastasiia Yumrukuz98
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8644-8655
Abstract
The authors prove the assumption that the
linguo-cultural opposition ORDNUNG vs.
CHAOS has a certain influence on the formation
of such ethno-specific ambivalent emotion
concepts (EC) SEHNSUCHT, FERNWEH AND
HEIMWEH in the German linguo-culture. Due
to the applied methodology (definitional and
contextual analyses of EC names) it was
established that the German chaos and
metaphysical fear (ANGST) oppose a kind of
"safety-cosiness quartet", which is represented
by concepts SICHERHEIT, GEBORGENHEIT,
GEMÜTLICHKEIT and ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT.
It was revealed that the universal principle of
perception of the objective world ONE’S OWN
vs. ALIEN serves as the basis for the opposition
ORDNUNG vs. CHAOS and its derivative
ANGST vs. SICHERHEIT &
GEBORGENHEIT & GEMÜTLICHKEIT &
ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT. This principle caused
"disruption" of the inner world of the German
linguo-culture representatives because, on the
one hand, they strive for a sense of safety,
security, comfort, and stability, which generates
"their own" world, but, on the other hand, they
95
DrSc. (Philology), Full Professor of Foreign Philology, Translation and Teaching Methodology Department of Hryhorii Skovoroda
University in Pereiaslav, Ukraine.
96
DrSc. (Philology), Professor of the Theory and Practice of Translation from English Department, Taras Shevchenko National
University of Kyiv, Ukraine.
97
PhD (Philology), Associate Professor of Inter-Cultural Communication, World Literature and Translation Department, Vinnytsia
Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi State Pedagogical University, Ukraine.
98
PhD (Philology), Associate Professor of Western and Oriental Languages and Methods of Their Teaching Department, State
Institution "South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushynsky", Ukraine.
Mizin, K., Slavova, L., Petrov, O., & Yumrukuz, A. / Volume 12 - Issue 61: 224-235 / January, 2023
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constantly try to go beyond the latter, since the
"alien" world is associated not only with chaos
and danger but also with new sensations and
experience. Such an emotional "disruption" of
the German people between metaphysical fear
and a "safety-cosiness quartet", to some extent,
gave rise to the ambivalence of the EC
SEHNSUCHT, FERNWEH and HEIMWEH.
Key words: ambivalent emotion concept,
linguo-culture, order, chaos, Sehnsucht,
Fernweh.
Introduction
In modern science, there is a growing tendency
to understand the surrounding world as a highly
complex configuration of open systems
(Luhmann, 1995). These systems exhibit a
certain structural isomorphism, which concerns,
in particular, their organization according to the
principle of dichotomies (cf. a person’s
perception of objective reality through the prism
of "embodied" orientations (e.g., TOP vs.
BOTTOM, RIGHT vs. LEFT), sociocultural
oppositions (e.g., ONE’S OWN vs. ALIEN),
intercultural oppositions (e.g., COLLECTIVISM
vs. INDIVIDUALISM), etc.). Such an
organization is one of the prerequisites for the
development of a person’s inner (mental) world,
with its dynamics dependent on the permanent
balancing between opposite entities. As a result
of the interaction of individuals of a certain
cultural group, there arise constant (ethno- and
socio-cultural) features of this world. They serve
to form a common world picture in this group.
Such "pictures" contain well-established
(traditional) ideas of different linguo-cultures
representatives about the world around them,
reflecting the features of the categorization and
conceptualization of the latter.
The dichotomous world order, both objective and
mental, is extrapolated to the processes of human
development, where the strengthening of one
tendency activates the opposite one. Today’s
globalisation, for example, has led to anti-
globalisation processes. Among the latter, the
spread of ethnocentric tendencies in the
European linguistic and cultural space should be
noted (Mizin & Letiucha, 2019, p. 237). These
tendencies directly correlate with the problems of
intercultural communication and intercultural
barriers, actualising the study of various world
pictures, which consist of cultural concepts,
including EC.
Cultural specificity is inherent not only in those
ECs that convey the meanings of social or moral
emotions, but also in those that represent basic
emotions, since modern empirical studies prove
that both the expression of basic (universal)
emotions and their perception (recognition,
decoding) can have cultural tagging among
representatives of different linguistic
communities (Chen et al., 2018; Doyle, Gendron,
& Lindquist, 2021; Gendron et al., 2014; Jack et
al., 2012). Considering this, the search for
equivalents in the target linguo-cultures for the
ECs of the original linguo-culture is a big
problem, especially in the case of ethno-specific
ECs (Goddard, 2018; Lomas, 2017; Mizin &
Ovsiienko, 2020; Mizin et al., 2021; Mizin,
Slavova, & Khmara, 2021; Ogarkova,
Panasenko, & Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk,
2013; Oster, 2012).
The presence of ethno-cultural meanings in ECs
allows us to assert that each world picture is
characterized by a complex emotional "mosaic",
in which numerous dichotomies can be traced.
This is because the very nature of this mosaic is
based on two opposite processes – universalism
and ethnocentrism (Mizin & Kolesnyk, 2021,
p. 19). Therefore, even those ECs that convey the
universal meanings of basic emotions can form
specific configurations in accordance with those
social norms and/or values (rules of conduct,
code of ethics, moral norms, etc.) that function in
a particular linguo-culture.
For instance, in the Germans’ world picture the
emotional "mosaic" is largely determined by the
concept ORDNUNG 'Order' and the associated
concept CHAOS 'Chaos', which divided the inner
world of the Germans into two poles,
contributing to the emergence of a number of
specific cultural concepts, including emotional
ones (Cramer, 2015; Mizin & Kolesnyk, 2021;
Wierzbicka, 1999). ORDER represents the
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positive pole where those ECs representing the
emotions of security and comfort are grouped.
CHAOS is closely correlated with the existential
fear of the Germans, which represents the
concept of ANGST 'anxiety; fear' (Wierzbicka,
1999, pp. 159-166).
Since a person constantly strives to harmonise
one’s own inner world, which also implies a
search for emotional balance in the form of
emotional release or emotional balance, this
leads to the formation of such ECs, which
negative meaning structure can be levelled by the
positive meanings contained in it, and vice versa.
Similar ECs can be both negative and positive,
which depends on the individual’s subjective
perception of the emotional situation. This
phenomenon is called ambivalence (see more in
Lomas, 2017, p. 6). It can be assumed that the
emergence of ambivalent ECs among the
Germans may be associated with the search for a
balance between positive order and negative
chaos. Considering this, the purpose of the
research is to determine the influence of the
linguo-cultural opposition ORDNUNG vs.
CHAOS on the formation of ambivalent ethno-
specific ECs in the German linguo-culture.
Theoretical Framework
The concept ORDNUNG occupies a key position
in the hierarchy of values of German linguo-
culture, which is emphasised by adherents of the
ethnopragmatic direction of cognitive linguistics
(Cramer, 2015; Wierzbicka, 1999). The
relevance of this concept is associated with the
fact, that metaphysical (existential) fear
(ANGST), which activates the opposite of
ORDNUNG concept CHAOS, has a special
meaning for the Germans. It is the fear of the
chaos that causes them to permanently gravitate
toward order. The frequency graph of the
lemmas, which are the names of these concepts,
clearly demonstrates the following pattern:
lowering the role of order and safety actualises
chaos (Fig. 1). However, since the beginning of
the 20th century, existential fear has been
especially sharply actualised, which is obviously
connected with the challenges that German
society has faced in recent decades, i.e.
globalisation, emigration, terrorist attacks, the
growing influence of right-wing radicals,
coronavirus, inflation, etc. All these factors make
Germans uncertain about their future, which
confirms the linguo-cultural relevance of the
concept ZUKUNFTSANGST 'fear of the future'
(Cramer, 2015, p. 274).
Fig. 1. Frequency graph of the lemmas Angst, Ordnung, Sicherheit, Chaos according to Google Books
Ngram Viewer; German; 1900–2019; smoothing 3 (GBNV, 2023).
Insecurity about the future, as well as uncertainty
cause Germans even more fear than the real
danger. This is fully consistent with the
conclusion of the sociologist G. Hofstede (2006,
pp. 228-289) that such a criterion for comparing
cultures as UNSICHERHEITSVERMEIDUNG
(approximate translation: uncertainty avoidance)
plays a special role in Germany. Representatives
of cultures with a high level of uncertainty
avoidance, in particular the Germans, are
characterized by a desire to comply with rules,
norms of behaviour, and laws, a negative attitude
towards ambiguity, clear and long-term planning
for the future, the need for clear and detailed
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written instructions, frankness in expressing
criticism, lack of risk appetite.
Obviously, this was the reason why the idea of
the founder of the philosophical current of
existentialism S. Kierkegaard (2020) that
metaphysical fear has an existential significance
for the existence of the individual was picked up
by German thinkers, primarily M. Heidegger
(1979, p. 135). The latter defined ANGST as the
basic state (Grundbefindlichkeit) of being. In
addition, the close attention to this problem by
the philosophers who belong to Germanic
linguo-cultures can also be explained by the
influence of world pictures, because physical and
metaphysical fears in Germanic languages,
unlike, e.g., East Slavic, have separate linguistic
designations (cf. also French angoisse, Czech
uzkost, Polish lek). If we compare the names of
fear in some Germanic languages (on the left
there is a lexeme for the designation of physical
fear, and on the right – the one of metaphysical),
we find that the latter can be rendered not even in
one word, but in two lexical units that are very
close in meaning: German Furcht – Angst,
English fear – angst/anxiety, Danish frygt –
angest, Swedish fruktan – ångest/rädsla,
Norwegian frykt – angst/redsel. Such synonymy
is one of the criteria that may indicate the
relevance of metaphysical fear for Germanic
linguo-cultures (Mizin & Kolesnyk, 2021, p. 19).
A. Wierzbicka (1999, pp. 123–168) considers the
EC ANGST in close connection not only with the
concept ORDNUNG, but also SICHERHEIT
'security generated by confidence' and
GEBORGENHEIT 'existential security; shelter;
staying in a place where you can feel safe'. The
last two concepts contain specific emotional
meanings, forming together with
GEMÜTLICHKEIT 'cosiness; sincerity;
comfort; security' and ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT
'reliability; confidence', a kind of 'safety-cosiness
quartet' that opposes chaos and metaphysical fear
in the German cultural space (Mizin & Petrov,
2021, p. 50). The concepts belonging to this
"quartet" contribute to the emergence of a certain
balance in the emotional world of the Germans
since chaos and fear create here a discrepancy
between the harmony of the inner world and
external disharmony, in which various historical
and sociocultural factors give rise to that fear of
the future that oppresses the "German spirit".
It is noteworthy that the basis for the opposition
ORDNUNG vs. CHAOS and its derivative
ANGST vs. SICHERHEIT &
GEBORGENHEIT & GEMÜTLICHKEIT &
ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT serves as a universal
principle of perception of the objective world
ONE’S OWN vs. ALIEN. This principle causes
a permanent balancing of the individual between
the positive "one’s own" world and the negative
"alien" one: on the one hand, a person strives for
a sense of safety, security, comfort, and stability,
which generates "one’s own" world, but, on the
other hand, one constantly tries to go beyond the
latter, since the "alien" world is associated not
only with chaos and danger but also with new
sensations and experience, which is the basis for
the evolution of mankind as a whole. Such a
"disruption" of the person’s inner world gives
rise to ambivalent emotions when an individual
simultaneously experiences positive and
negative feelings. With this in mind, it can be
assumed that the emotional balancing of
representatives of the German linguo-culture
between existential fear and the "safety-cosiness
quartet" is closely related to the formation of
ethno-specific ambivalent ECs SEHNSUCHT
'longing; need; passion; nostalgia', FERNWEH
'wanderlust; itchy feet' and HEIMWEH
'homesickness'.
Methodology
The methodology of the research involves the
implementation of three research stages:
1) identifying specific meanings of the
concepts of the "safety-cosiness quartet"
with the help of definitional (dictionaries
and reference books) and contextual
analyses of their names. The latter procedure
is carried out on the basis of a selection of
concordance lines from the concordances of
the corresponding words of the German
DWDS corpus;
2) determining the actual meanings of the
ambivalent EC SEHNSUCHT and
establishing its close correlation with the
concepts of the "safety-cosiness quartet", as
well as with the ECs FERNWEH and
HEIMWEH;
3) establishing the origins of the ambivalence
of the ECs SEHNSUCHT, FERNWEH, and
HEIMWEH, taking into account the inner
world division of German linguo-culture
representatives into oppositions ONE’S
OWN vs. ALIEN → ORDNUNG vs.
CHAOS → ANGST vs. SICHERHEIT &
GEBORGENHEIT & GEMÜTLICHKEIT
& ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT.
Methodologically, these analytical procedures
are based on theoretical provisions regarding (1)
the cultural tagging of emotional concepts and
their expression of evaluation and (2) the
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objectivity of language corpora for linguistic
studies:
1) evaluation (valence), as known, is a key
component of the majority of theories that
address the problem of the nature of
emotions. This also applies to the theoretical
and practical understanding of such a
phenomenon as ambivalent emotions
(Carrera & Oceja, 2007; Hershfield et al.,
2013; Holm, Greaker, & Strömberg, 2002;
Larsen et al., 2003; Lomas, 2017; Moss &
Couchman, 2012; Moss & Wilson, 2014;
Rees et al., 2013). The phenomenon of such
emotions is that they combine, or rather mix
positive and negative assessments. One of
the most striking examples of ambivalent
ECs is the Anglo-Saxon LONGING, in
which the meanings of the basic emotions of
happiness and sadness are "mixed" (Holm,
Greaker, & Strömberg, 2002, p. 608). It is
this concept that can act in certain situations
as the equivalent of the German ethno-
specific EC SEHNSUCHT;
2) corpus-based methodology is now
increasingly being involved in the study of
cultural concepts (Mizin et al., 2021, p. 100).
Among the adherents of corpus linguistics, a
position has been formed that texts are not
only manifestations of the language system
but also of those cultural conditions and
situations in which they are generated. This
allows a corpus-based methodology to be
applied in revealing the characteristics of a
particular culture. There is, e.g., the
possibility of studying the distribution of
those lexical units that represent culturally
marked concepts in language distribution
corpora in order to identify their cultural
meanings (Mizin, Slavova, & Khmara,
2021, p. 75). However, corpus data provide
a more objective view of language than
intuition (Krieger, 2003; McEnery &
Wilson, 2001) because it is empirical,
inductive, and quantitative. Therefore, data
from corpus linguistics greatly reinforces the
results and conclusions of linguistic research
(Tissari, Vanhatalo, & Siiroinen, 2019,
p. 322). This is especially true for those
studies that determine the actual content of
words that are the names of cultural concepts
since nowadays language corpora provide
ample opportunities for this. For this
purpose, it is possible, in particular, to
analyse the typical combination of such
words in representative corpora based on the
study of their contextual environment in
concordance lines and statistical data of their
occurrent forms.
Results and Discussion
1. Specific meanings of the "safety-cosiness
quartet" concepts and their connection
with the EC SEHNSUCHT.
As reported above, the "quartet" is formed in
German linguo-culture by four concepts, each of
them containing emotional meanings –
SICHERHEIT, ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT,
GEBORGENHEIT і GEMÜTLICHKEIT. In the
latter two, emotional meanings dominate, so they
belong to the ECs.
SICHERHEIT is the most relevant among these
concepts, which has almost as much linguistic
and cultural significance for Germans as
ORDNUNG. It expresses meanings of full
confidence that nothing bad can happen. A
greater sense of security distinguishes it, e.g.,
from the Anglo-Saxon concepts of SAFETY and
SECURITY, since the former contains the
meaning 'nothing bad will happen', and the latter
– 'nothing bad can happen' (Shmelev, 2005,
pp. 445-446).
Unlike SICHERHEIT, EC GEBORGENHEIT
conveys the meaning of not only protection, but
also closeness, warmth, calmness, peace, trust,
loves and acceptance by other people
(Chesnokova, 2013, p. 66). From the mother’s
womb the Germans feel protected in various life
situations: in their family, with friends, etc. The
safety and security need requires predictability
and stability, which has contributed to the
foregrounding of the concept
ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT in German linguo-
culture. The latter contains a whole range of
meanings related to reliability (stability, security,
certainty, in the future in particular, trust in
established things or acquaintances), a conscious
attitude to duty, thoroughness, truthfulness, etc.
ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT closely correlates with
SICHERHEIT, complementing it, since German
native speakers only feel safe when they are sure
of the stability and reliability of everything
around them, as well as being sure of the future.
If there is no such confidence, then it causes
metaphysical fear.
Therefore, an atmosphere of safety is created by
the feeling of reliability, confidence and security.
In such an atmosphere there arises a specific
German cosiness, which is represented by ЕC
GEMÜTLICHKEIT. The latter was formed on
German lands in the 18th century in the
environment of the middle class – the
bourgeoisie. This EC gained a special socio-
cultural significance in Germany during the
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Biedermeier period, when the bourgeoisie found
a kind of protection from constant political,
social and economic changes in returning to their
family, loved ones and native home. It was at this
time when EC GEMÜTLICHKEIT began to be
embodied in relevant forms (style of residential
premises, design of clubs by interest, etc.) and
social practices (various clubs by interest, joint
organization of rest, coffee or tea rituals, joint
lunches, etc.) (Schmidt-Lauber, 2004, p. 32). The
Germans use the words Gemütlichkeit and
gemütlich to denote an evening, a room, a
pleasant walk, but gloomy weather is
characterised as ungemütlich 'uncomfortable'.
Not only a person’s socialisation, but also their
physical nature, in particular the body
(embodiment as a basic cognitive mechanism),
serves as the basis to formulate the meanings of
existential security and comfort. Bodily
experience and feelings formed the basis of many
ECs, including "security and cosiness" ones,
since psychologists explain the desire to find a
replacement for the already familiar prenatal
experience of safety in the mother’s body by the
increased need in safety, in a small, closed,
clearly defined space where one could hide from
danger and chaos. In particular, EC
GEBORGENHEIT (Intelmann, 2004, p. 200) is
associated with the prenatal experience of the
individual, which emphasizes the depth of the
Germans’ irrational desire to seek protection in a
kind of shelter.
The idea of finding a safe, protected place is
contained in the very content of the noun
Geborgenheit, which originates from the verb
bergen – '1) to deliver to a safe place, to save, to
hide, to protect; 2) contain something in oneself;
3) to feel safe (protected, calm)' (Wahrig, 2001,
p. 257). Germans associate such a safe and
protected place primarily with their native home
and hearth (dwelling, home, house, room, native
area, native horizons, homeland, etc.). This is
evidenced by the data of the language corpus,
where one of the most frequent collocates of the
Geborgenheit lemma are Zuhause 'native home',
Elternhaus 'parents’ house', Hort 'shelter', Halt
'halt'; parking lot', Heim '(native, parental) home;
hearth', Haus 'house', Heimat 'homeland'
(DWDS, 2023).
The origins of the world division into "own" and
"alien" can be traced back to the distant past,
when the organization of the ancient Germans’
settlements was a scaled copy of the "middle
earth" (Old Icelandic Midgaðr, Old English
middangearþ) as a discrete, protected and safe
space. The middle here has a symbolic, sacred
meaning, since in Germanic mythology the
people’s world – MIDGARD – is the locus of the
intersection of several worlds, which are ordered
in at least two dimensions. The vertical
dimension is MIDGARD (world of people),
ASGARD (world of gods), MUSPELHEIM
(world of fire giants), NIFLHEIM (world of
moisture and darkness). On the horizontal plane,
MIDGARD is surrounded by UTGARD (the
world of monsters and giants). This means that
MIDGARD for the ancient Germans is "their
own" (ordered, safe, protected, cosy) world,
which is reliably "fenced" from the fears and
dangers of the outside world by various real and
imaginary "fences" (the boundaries of one’s
dwelling, the walls of the house, a fence, a river,
mountains, forest, etc.). Even the ancient
Germans saw paradise not in an open space (cf.
the Fortunate islands, Gardens of the Hesperidia,
Elysian fields, the top of Olympus from Greek
mythology), but in the huge palace of fallen
warriors, WALHALLE (Gachev, 2008, p. 218).
The world division into MIDGARD and
UTGARD was imprinted in the modern
descendants of the ancient Germanic, in
particular the Germans, at the level of the
collective unconscious, so in their imagination
there is something terrible, scary, i.e., everything
that causes ANGST, beyond "their own" –
ordered – world. These are the origins of the
emotional need of representatives of the German
language culture in a closed, limited space and
their special longing for their home, for a cosy
home hearth, where you can feel geborgen
'protected; cosily’.
Hence, for Germans the native home serves as
the centre of the human universe that resists
threats from the outside world. Therefore, the
native home is always filled with positivity and
is associated with family, relatives (ancestral
roots) and home hearth. In German
consciousness, "their own" is clear, order reigns
here, and "alien" is incomprehensible, chaotic.
Chaos is the threat that requires creation of an
existential shelter for an individual – their cosy,
safe, orderly, small space where they will not feel
alien, homeless and existentially alone.
It is noteworthy that the need of the German
linguo-culture representatives for security and
cosiness can cause opposite feelings of
unrestrained thirst and longing, which indicates a
close connection of the concepts SICHERHEIT,
GEBORGENHEIT, GEMÜTLICHKEIT and
ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT with EC SEHNSUCHT.
Since the period of romanticism longing for
security (Sehnsucht nach der Geborgenheit) has
contributed to the formation of the specifically
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German concept of KULTUR DER
INNERLICHKEIT (approximate translation: the
culture of the soul or the culture of the inner life),
because the Germans at the turning points in the
development of the nation were nostalgic for the
cultural inner world more than for freedom and
democracy (Gelfert, 2019).
2. Actual meanings of EC SEHNSUCHT and
its close correlation with EC FERNWEH.
EC SEHNSUCHT demonstrates a noticeable
relevance for the modern German-speaking
community, which is evidenced by the high
frequency of its name in various types of
discourse (Fig. 2), as well as the fact that the
name of this EC – the lexeme Sehnsucht – took
the third place (after Liebe 'love' and
Gemütlichkeit 'cosiness') in the nomination "the
most beautiful German word" (Spiegel Online,
2004). Despite this, researchers have only
recently turned their attention to it (Kotter-Grühn
et al., 2009; Mayer, Scheibe, & Riediger, 2008;
Scheibe et al., 2011).
Fig. 2. Frequency graph of the lemmas Sehnsucht, Heimweh, Fernweh according to Google Books Ngram
Viewer data; German; 1900–2019; smoothing 3 (GBNV, 2023).
The psychologist T. Lomas (2016) defined the
noun Sehnsucht as untranslatable. This means
that even the universal emotional meanings it
possesses show a unique configuration typical of
the German linguo-culture. The definitional
analysis made it possible to establish that the
noun Sehnsucht conveys a wide emotional
palette, which includes the following main
shades of meaning: 'passionate desire for
something'; 'craving for someone'; 'rush to
something'; 'longing for someone, for
something'; 'internal, painful thirst' (Mizin &
Ovsiienko, 2020, p. 114). The results of this
analysis are consistent with the conclusion of
psychologists regarding the multifaceted nature
of the emotion represented by EC SEHNSUCHT.
The latter is much more positive than, e.g., the
Anglo-Saxon EC NOSTALGIA, however,
expressing passionate desires and aspirations, it
contains an element of utopianism (Scheibe,
Freund, & Baltes, 2007, p. 778).
By establishing the actual semantic structure of
the EC SEHNSUCHT on the basis of language
corpora data, it was found that this concept
contains deep meanings (Mizin & Ovsiienko,
2020, p. 118), e.g.:
1) Blaue Blumen stehen für sehr tiefe Gefühle
und die Sehnsucht nach Unendlichkeit
(DWDS, 2023)
[Blue flowers stand for very deep feelings and
desire stands for infinity].
Deep emotions and feelings are secret, intimate,
i.e., they always contain a part of the inner world
of a specific individual, e.g.:
2) In dieser Komposition mischen sich
Sehnsucht, Demut und Vertrauen, und
wurden verwoben von der Sopranistin
(DWDS, 2023)
[In this composition desire, humility and trust are
mixed and they were interwoven by a soprano].
Depending on the emotional situation that
prepares a person to experience a certain
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emotional state, EC SEHNSUCHT activates
either positive or negative meanings in the
individual consciousness. The depth of emotions
expressed by this EC, their secrecy, can even lull
an individual into a manic state, when one of their
passions turns into mania, causing manic-
suicidal depression (Bloch, 1967). This
psychopathological condition received the
designation Todessehnsucht in German.
For representatives of an "alien" linguo-culture,
the case when one specific EC is determined
through another is extremely difficult, especially
when it comes to ambivalent ECs. An example
here is the fact that one of the facets of EC
SEHNSUCHT is the ambivalent concept of
FERNWEH:
3) Die Sehnsucht hat viele Facetten, Fernweh
gehört auch dazu (DWDS, 2023)
[Desire has many facets, wanderlust belongs
here, too].
3. Oppositions ONE’S OWN vs. ALIEN →
ORDNUNG vs. CHAOS → ANGST vs.
SICHERHEIT & GEBORGENHEIT &
GEMÜTLICHKEIT &
ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT as origins of
ambivalence of EC SEHNSUCHT,
FERNWEH and HEIMWEH.
The ambivalent EC FERNWEH, the main
meanings of which are 'passion for travel', 'lust
for travel' and 'longing for distant worlds', is
gradually gaining relevance in German linguo-
culture: if in 1946 the frequency of the lemma
Fernweh was 0.18 (Freq.=0.18) per 1 million
tokens, then by 2022 its frequency is already 1.22
(Freq.=1.22) (DWDS, 2023). This EC has its
roots in the era of "traveling" romanticism, when
a number of concepts that convey
passion/wanderlust including WANDERLUST
and REISELUST appeared. Since the time of
romanticism, the passion for travel has become
one of the most important features of modern
German life.
EC FERNWEH contains mainly positive
meanings, but the Weh component of its name
denotes pain and sadness that give rise to
depressive longing, e.g.:
4) Er seufzt wieder und schaut über den See, als
habe er Fernweh (DWDS, 2023)
[He sighs again and looks far beyond the sea, as
if he longs for distance].
The negativity of such experiences can even
transform into a disease, e.g.:
5) Fernweh ist die beste Krankheit in der Welt
(DWDS, 2023)
[Wanderlust is the best disease in the world].
However, the positive meanings of irresistible
desire, passions and cravings neutralize the
negativity of this disease, e.g.:
6) Über Fernweh zum Beispiel kommt man
ohne therapeutische Hilfe hinweg (DWDS,
2023)
[Wanderlust, for example, is overcome without
therapeutic help].
In this way FERNWEH differs from EC
FERNSUCHT, which conveys the meaning of a
person’s greater dependence (obsession) on
travel.
It is noteworthy that among the three ECs
WANDERLUST, STORCHGEFÜHL 'the
feeling of a stork' and KRANICHGEFÜHL 'the
feeling of a crane', which are considered to be the
predecessors of FERNWEH (Kluge, 1901,
p. 40), only the first one has gained use in the
German-speaking community, conveying
positive meanings, since in the days of
romanticism Germans perceived passion to travel
completely naturally, considering that it is
provoked by an instinct similar to that which
makes migratory birds go to flock. Instead,
FERNWEH balances the positive and the
negative, and one of its dominant meanings is
'depressive longing', e.g.:
7) Von Fernweh gepeinigt, hockten wir also
nun auf meinem Ostberliner Sofa (DWDS,
2023)
[So, exhausted by wanderlust, we sat on my
couch in East Berlin].
This yearning for distance, for an "alien" world,
is obviously a consequence of the socially
depressed periods that the German language
linguo-society experienced during the last
centuries (wars, political upheavals, economic
downturns, etc.). In such periods, the inner, and
in particular the emotional world of Germans,
organized around order, security, stability and
cosiness, was disturbed, became uncomfortable,
which forced individuals to seek inner comfort
outside this world. At that time, a change of locus
(moving to another country, traveling, journey)
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often remained an unfulfilled dream, which
caused depressive longing. Nowadays, it is on the
contrary, globalisation pushes people to change
places (professional mobility, educational
mobility, tourism, etc.), which contributes to a
change of meanings configuration in the EC
FERNWEH – less longing and more passionate
desire, e.g.:
8) Das ist super, um sich einen ersten Eindruck
zu verschaffen und das Fernweh zu wecken
(DWDS, 2023)
[It’s great for getting a first impression and
awakening the wanderlust].
The organisation of the inner world of German
linguo-culture according to such universal and
ethno-specific contrasts as ONE’S OWN vs.
ALIEN, ORDNUNG vs. CHAOS and ANGST
vs. SICHERHEIT & GEBORGENHEIT &
GEMÜTLICHKEIT & ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT
has determined that FERNWEH also has its
"opponent" – EC HEIMWEH 'longing for
home/motherland'. The latter is not distinguished
by such ethno-cultural specificity as FERNWEH,
since in other Germanic cultures there are ECs
that can be considered equivalent to HEIMWEH,
in particular the Anglo-Saxon
HOMESICKNESS. A common semantic
element for FERNWEH and HEIMWEH is
longing mixed with sadness and depression, and
they differ primarily in the different vectors of
those loci that activate such longing – "external
("alien") world" vs. "inner ("own") world (home,
homeland, etc.)". And if the longing generated by
the opposition of "one’s own" is clear, then the
longing (sadness/sorrow/pain/depression) for
"alien" is, at least, incomprehensible for
representatives of other linguo-cultures.
On the example of FERNWEH and HEIMWEH,
a similar "tear" of the emotional world of
Germans between passion (craving) and longing
can be traced, as in the case of SEHNSUCHT,
which proves the close connection of these ECs,
e.g.:
9) Sehnsucht, Heimweh, Fernweh, das steckt
einfach in mir drin (DWDS, 2023)
[Longing, homesickness, wanderlust are all
within me];
10) Das Gefühl von damals, als dieser Film eine
existenzielle Form der Sehnsucht in mir
ausgelöst hat, wie Heimweh und Fernweh
zugleich (DWDS, 2023)
[The feeling of those times when this movie
evoked in me an existential form of deep
nostalgia – like homesickness and nostalgia for
traveling together].
It can be assumed that EC FERNWEH and
HEIMWEH are only elements of the whole
fragment of this world, which is represented by
SEHNSUCHT, since the relevance of the latter
for modern representatives of the German
linguo-society is much higher compared to the
former (Fig. 2). This fragment is filled with
emotions that give an individual hope (urges,
desire, longing) and at the same time take it away
(sadness, longing, depression). Such
ambivalence of these three ECs may indicate the
desire of Germans to balance the positive and the
negative in their emotional experiences.
Conclusions
The proposed article is devoted to the search of
arguments in favour of the assumption that in
German linguo-culture the emergence of some
ambivalent emotion concepts may be related to
finding a balance between positive order and
negative chaos, therefore the linguistic and
cultural opposition ORDNUNG vs. CHAOS
produces a certain influence on the formation of
such notions. With the help of the applied
methodology, which relies primarily on the
procedure of identifying the specific meanings of
the studied ECs based on definitional
(dictionaries and reference books) and contextual
(a sample of concordance series of the DWDS
corpus of the German language) analyses of their
names, it has been established that:
1) in the German cultural space a kind of
"safety-cosiness quartet" which is
represented by the concepts of
SICHERHEIT, GEBORGENHEIT,
GEMÜTLICHKEIT and
ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT is opposed to chaos
and metaphysical fear (EC ANGST). The
linguistic opposition ANGST vs.
SICHERHEIT & GEBORGENHEIT &
GEMÜTLICHKEIT &
ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT is a consequence of
the inner world division of the Germans on
the axis of ORDNUNG vs. CHAOS;
2) the universal principle of perception of the
objective world ONE’S OWN vs. ALIEN
serves the basis for the opposition
ORDNUNG vs. CHAOS and its derivative
ANGST vs. SICHERHEIT &
GEBORGENHEIT & GEMÜTLICHKEIT
& ZUVERLÄSSIGKEIT. This principle
causes a permanent balancing of the
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individual between the positive "one’s own"
world and the negative "alien";
3) the principle ONE’S OWN vs. ALIEN has
led to the "disruption" of the inner world of
the representatives of German linguo-
culture, because, on the one hand, they strive
for a sense of safety, security, comfort and
stability that "their own" world generates for
them, but on the other hand, they constantly
try to go beyond the latter, since the "alien"
world is associated not only with chaos and
danger, but also with new sensations and
new experiences. Such an emotional
"disruption", or rather emotional balancing,
can contribute to the emergence of
ambivalent emotions, when a certain
emotional experience causes an individual
both positive and negative feelings at the
same time;
4) balancing of the Germans between
metaphysical fear and the "safety-cosiness
quartet" is closely related to the formation of
ethno-specific ambivalent ECs
SEHNSUCHT, FERNWEH and
HEIMWEH. At the same time, EC
SEHNSUCHT forms a whole fragment of
the emotional world of modern
representatives of German linguo-society,
and EC FERNWEH and HEIMWEH are
only its elements. In this fragment, there is a
permanent conflict between positive
emotions (urges, desire, thirst) and negative
ones (sadness, longing, depression), as a
result of which a balance of positivity and
negativity is achieved in the emotional
experiences of Germans.
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